We had another early start. We had to get up and be ready by 7.30 to be picked up for a whale shark trip. As there was no jetty we had to board a small boat that took us to the main sightseeing boat. Once all 20 of us were on board we left the “harbor” we anchored down so we could get in the water for a 30 minute snorkel. This was nothing spectacular although we saw a lot of small colored fish and some coral. We then cruised further along the Cape Range coast southwards seeing humpback whales.
At 10 o”clock the spotter planes take to the skies to radio in the location of the whale sharks and the boat then heads that way. Once the destination is reached a group of 10 people get in the water right in the path of the shark. Once it gets closer the group splits to the right and left to let the shark pass and the continues to swim alongside. These are magnificent creatures and the ones we saw today were 6-7 meters long.
As the whale shark is an endangered species, it”s illegal to harm them in any way and we had to stay 3 meters away from it’s body and 4 meters from it’s tail (seems logical as the tail of a full grown whale shark can weigh 1 ton).
After we had 4 opportunities to swim with these sharks it was time to return. On the way back we had some bottlenose dolphins swim in the bowwave and a few humpbacks were seen breaching out of the water.